Ex-coach sentenced to 10 years for sex charge TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say a former Texarkana-area youth baseball coach who pleaded guilty to a sex charge has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Arkansas says 62-year-old Walter Richard Roberts of Texarkana, Ark., was sentenced Wednesday to the maximum sentence available under the law at the time of the crime. Prosecutors say Roberts was a youth baseball coach in Te...

2 shot at practice for LR high school graduation NORTH LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Authorities say two people have been wounded in a shooting during graduation practice for a Little Rock high school. North Little Rock police said they were called at about 11 a.m. Tuesday to Verizon Arena, where a male and a female were wounded. Police say the female victim was a student at Little Rock Parkview High School. The Little Rock School District said the male wasn't a student, is in serious condition and tha...

Dover official earns Master Principal statusDOVER — Dover Elementary School principal Donny Forehand has earned the Arkansas Leadership Academy’s Master Principal certification. He was presented with a plaque commemorating the honor at the Dover school board meeting on Thursday. The plaque certified Forehand’s completion of the Arkansas Leadership Academy’s Master Principal Program, a course designed to better educate public school principals in the fields of leadership and academic qua...

Nuts and bolts of firefighter trainingNational disasters typically associated with the Midwest include tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. Food and water are stored and emergency plans are discussed among families in order to prepare for these events. With more than 50,000 acres of Arkansas wild-land burned each year, forest fires aren’t something that should be ignored. The height of fire season is rapidly approaching and the need for well trained professionals is vastly apparent...

Russellville High students win 53 press association awardsROGERS — Russellville High School’s publications staffs recently returned from the Arkansas Scholastic Press Association Convention and Competition with 53 awards. Two students in particular were recognized for their leadership. Savannah Null, editor of the Black Couch literary magazine, earned the editor of the year award among all literary magazine staffs in Arkansas. “I feel privileged and humbled to be chosen as ASPA Editor of the Year, no...

19 from River Valley among Ozarks graduatesNineteen students from the Arkansas River Valley were part of the 2013 senior class that graduated from University of the Ozarks on Saturday, May 11. The university’s 179th graduation ceremony was held on the campus mall. President Dr. Rick Niece, who is retiring in June after 16 years at the helm of the university, was the commencement speaker. The 79 members of the 2013 graduating class included both December 2012 graduates and those who wil...

Teacher of Year brings class fresh perspectiveLeslie Mackin disliked English classes as a student. And that’s one thing she thinks makes her such an effective teacher. “What makes me a good English teacher is that I was not a good English student,” she said. “I made decent grades in English, but I was a math and science kid. When kids have questions about the work, I get that they don’t get it. I can relate with them.” But while she may not have been passionate about the subject, she is p...

Foreign exchange student embraces Southern cultureFor five days every week growing up, Sten Ritterfeld would leave Uelsen, Germany, the village he called home and cross the western border to the Netherlands, where he attended school at Hardenberg. To Americans, crossing a border to go to work or school seems unheard of; for Ritterfeld, and Europeans as a whole, visiting another country is as commonplace as Americans traveling to an adjacent state. With a Dutch mother and a German father, Ritt...

Dardanelle School Board approves second SRODARDANELLE —The Dardanelle School Board approved a plan on Monday to enter into a contract with the City of Dardanelle that would allow the school district to have a second school resource officer. The school board has not yet taken steps to bring the new SRO on staff for the coming school year. The Dardanelle School District currently has one student resource office on staff. The school board also agreed to purchase additional cafeteria table...

RHS seniors receive scholarshipsRussellville High School seniors were presented with awards and scholarships Monday night totaling more than $400,000 for becoming quintessential models of academic excellence. Eight Russellville top honors seniors were recognized as Governor’s Distinguished Scholars during the Celebration of Excellence ceremony at The Center for the Arts on the RHS campus. Carter Bodinger, Bailey Burnett, Cody Campbell, Caitlyn Chambers, David Jacobson, Mason...

Wisconsin boy gets handwritten response from Biden MILWAUKEE (AP) — It might not be unusual for schoolchildren to write to the president or vice president. But one Wisconsin boy got an unexpectedly personal response. The 7-year-old, second-grade student at Downtown Montessori Academy wrote a letter to Vice President Joe Biden and other officials a few months ago with a simple idea for making the world safer. His teacher Jenny Aicher said his letter suggested that if guns shot chocolate bullets...

Dover principal completes master principal workLITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State Board of Education is recognizing the principal of Dover Elementary School and four other principals who've completed the work needed to become master school principals. The state board honored Donny Forehand from Dover Elementary School and four others on Monday after each principal completed three years of professional development plus an additional year of performance evaluations. The other new master princi...

Graduation ceremoniesWith the coming of May comes the end of the school year, and for high school seniors, it’s the end of their last year of public schooling. With graduation just around the corner, it’s time to begin making plans for the commencement ceremonies that are fast approaching. Here is a list of area high school graduations scheduled for the coming week: • Wednesday — Danville High School 7 p.m. on the Danville football field. If it rains, the ceremoni...

Student visits ATU campus for 1st time — on graduation dayAmy Teetzen of Greenwood was running out of time to realize her dream of earning a college degree. She was frustrated by what she describes as “rigid schedules” at colleges and universities she had attended in the past. Married for three years with plans to soon move to Dallas, Texas, with her husband and begin a family, Teetzen was beginning to think she would have to wait until after she raised her children to complete her baccalaureate degr...

Murphy, Rothwells to enter Hall of Distinction SaturdayRUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (May 10, 2013)--On Saturday, three Arkansas Tech University alumni will receive the greatest honor their alma mater may bestow. Jim Murphy of Russellville and Terry Tucker Rothwell and Ben Rothwell of Heber Springs will be inducted into the Arkansas Tech Hall of Distinction during a 10 a.m. commencement ceremony at John E. Tucker Coliseum in Russellville. Established in 1964, the Arkansas Tech Hall of Distinction recognizes ...

Teachers Academy graduation Wednesday morning, more than 40 teachers and administrators gathered at the Russellville Center for the Arts for a banquet to celebrate their first year teaching in the district, as part of the school district’s New Teacher Academy. The program helps acclimate teachers to their first year of teaching by scheduling monthly lunches between the new teachers and their principals, as well as quarterly meetings with district administrators. “Three y...

Misdemeanor trial set for former Russellville principalA former Russellville High School principal pleaded not guilty to possessing an instrument of crime via his attorney during Pope County District Court proceedings on April 30. A June 4 trial date has been set for Samuel S. Ussery, 36, who was cited by Arkansas State Police for possession of an instrument of crime, a Class A misdemeanor, following a traffic stop on March 25. Ussery is also accused of failing to provide right-of-way to a law enf...

REACH Drama Club to perform 'Comedy, Conflict and Hope' ThursdayREACH’s Drama Club invites the public to a free performance of “Comedy, Conflict and Hope” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the fellowship hall of First Baptist Church. The production includes a series of short skits, songs, readings and dramatizations that the students have been working on throughout the semester in their cooperative learning class. The cast includes: Michael and Aimee Anderson, Kia and Morganne Bruce, Josh Collins, Anna Freer, David...

RSD to implement summer programThis summer, Russellville School District hopes to redefine the meaning of summer school as they implement a summer enrichment program providing educational opportunities to children during summer break. The program, called Exploring L.I.F.E. (Learning Is Fun and Exciting), will be held from June 10 through June 28 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each weekday at Oakland Heights Elementary School. A total of 150 students district wide have been selected ...

RJHS project finalist in contestA class project assigned in an engineering class at the Russellville Junior High School could result in the school receiving over a thousand dollars in grant money after one of the student’s projects was selected as a finalist in Raytheon’s nationwide Build It Better Contest. Rachel Cogburn, an engineering teacher at RJHS, assigned the class a project after receiving an email asking students to submit ideas for a project. The criteria was open...